IDEA Lab blog

We are excited to kick off March with something fun that celebrates a love of reading and the importance of diversity in children's books. Students will be participating in the March Madness Picture Book Tournament. They will vote each week to narrow the field to one winner.

​The tournament developed out of two Ohio teacher's annual book tournaments five years ago. We love their core message: 'While this is a competition, books ALWAYS win!'

​This year the bracket includes past winners as the first seed and also an incredible selection of books that support diversity in children's literature. This year March Madness is partnering with the We Need Diverse Books Campaign to celebrate the "Reader's Journey."

Sounds awesome right?

How can you participate, support and encourage your students to participate?

We've made it super easy peasy.

Here is the playlist of the books being read aloud. Feel free to share some or all of them with your students. (Kids WILL have time to explore these during their library time in the RC Too). Then, each week we'll vote on a google form. Just like the basketball tournament, we'll emerge with one victor!

In the words of Matt de la Pena, "It doesn't matter if you are African American, Asian, disabled, part of the LGBTQ community, we all need to see ourselves in books, because if we don't see ourselves in books we may not feel as connected to the human experience. The story of all of us. At the same time, books are more than mirrors. They are also windows. I've always believed that reading is the ultimate form of empathy. Yes, we'd love to find ourselves in books and read about ourselves and our own experiences, but it's also important to read about people that aren't like us. It's only then that we will have a full understanding of the world around us."